Latest editorial
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Greater focus on the collateral damage connected to Salazar’s rule would have provided better context and more balance to his portrayal
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die
by Tom Gallagher I Hurst Publishers £25
AS leader of Portugal from 1932 to 1968, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was one of the most enduring dictators of the 20th century, wielding power through what his latest biographer, Tom Gallagher, identifies as a combination of “technical skills and acute political intuition.”
He came to his exalted position largely as a result of the terrible period that followed the 1910 revolution in Portugal, which ushered in a democratic republic but led to more than 15 years of political and economic chaos.
In 1926 a military coup tried to restore order and the army looked to Salazar - an economist, not a politician - to bring about some financial rectitude. He did such a good job that when he was eventually asked to fill the post of prime minister he could more or less name his terms, becoming absolute ruler in a bloodless coup of his own that turned the military dictatorship into a civilian one.
More from this author
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
PETER MASON applauds a thought-provoking study of the relationship between a grieving woman and her photographer
PETER MASON is moved by a striking production of Noel Streatfeild’s enduringly popular children’s book
PETER MASON reckons the NYT’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy is the pick of the Christmas shows on offer in London
Similar stories
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
Co-curator TOM WHITE introduces a father-and-son exhibition of photography documenting the experience and political engagement of Chilean exiles
LYNNE WALSH applauds a show of paintings that demonstrates the forward strides made by women over four centuries
ANDY HEDGECOCK celebrates the way that US writers have always used crime and sci-fi to explore and express dissident ideas